


(look out) here comes spider-man

by giucorreias



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, spider-man au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:40:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26554495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/giucorreias/pseuds/giucorreias
Summary: There aren't many things that can make Andrew feel. Deadpool becomes one of them.
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 8
Kudos: 168
Collections: AFTG Exchange Fall 2020





	(look out) here comes spider-man

**Author's Note:**

  * For [archura](https://archiveofourown.org/users/archura/gifts).



> This is a gift for archuraa @ the aftg fall exchange! I know you asked for angst and h/c but i don't know how to write those things :( i did try but it ended up so bad i decided to scrap it. i hope you like the fic anyway! It's a spider-man au, wherein Andrew is spider-man and Neil is deadpool!

There aren’t many things that can make Andrew feel. His family, on occasion, is one of them — Aaron is one of the few people in the world that can make Andrew feel gut-wrenching panic and overloading protectiveness, and Nicky the only one that can bring out Andrew’s softer side with his fumbling attempts at being a good role model. Kevin is a source of endless irritation- and, if Andrew’s being honest with himself, grudging fondness. The rest of the world — the countless, faceless people going about their little lives while being insignificant, they barely register.

Which is why, in general lines, Andrew doesn’t know how he became a superhero. Or rather, he doesn’t know how his superhero persona became widely regarded as the  _ friendly neighbour _ . It’s probably Kevin’s fault — his knowledge of how public opinion works, and his efforts in making Andrew more interested in the superhero scene by making him more relevant, or something. Admittedly, Andrew remembers every word of Kevin’s boring discourses, he just wishes he didn’t.

The wonders of not being able to forget.

“The thing,” he tells Bee, hot mug of chocolate in hands and sitting precariously on the chair in front of her table, one tuesday afternoon after missing therapy for several weeks in a row, “is that for some unfathomable reason, people find it easy to like Spider-Man. They like him better than some of the other heroes, despite the fact that Spider-Man is nothing. He’s done nothing of note that people are aware of. Not saved the world. Not stopped foreign invaders.”

Andrew is nothing like Allison — Spider-Man is nothing like Iron Woman, doesn’t have flashy laser weapons or money to waste on being a spectacle. He’s nothing like Kevin — nothing like Captain America — no one would say Andrew is America’s golden boy, the one person fated to save them all. People don’t say his name fervently, like a prayer, whenever they see something too big for them to deal with alone.

And still, New York is his territory. Irrevocably his. It’s him that criminals fear when they hear a hero is coming. It’s his name that old ladies yell when they’re being mugged. It’s his masked face all across the newspapers whenever something happens around the city.

Bee seems to have a fundamental understanding of people that Andrew has always lacked, so when she opens her mouth, Andrew pays attention. “You help people,” she says, and Andrew doesn’t roll his eyes but it’s a close thing. “Every day, tiny little things like helping an old woman cross the streets, or carrying somebody’s groceries. You listen to their grievances, no matter how small, and you try to solve them. It’s  _ kind _ .”

Andrew lets himself sigh. There’s a deep, dark desire to lash out and change her mind about him, because if she has no expectations then she won’t get disappointed. But this is Bee, and Andrew trusts her. It’s not easy to believe her words, and they’re prickly, itchy under his skin. But it’s not the first time someone’s described him as kind, and Andrew wonders if there isn’t something in him that they can see, but that he can’t.

“Deadpool said the same thing,” he tells her, instead.

Bee smiles. “So let’s talk about Deadpool.”

  
  


The first time they meet, they’re on different sides of the same fight. All Andrew knows of Deadpool is that his is the name whispered in the dark, a mercenary with no allegiances that kills people for money, selling his skills to the highest bidder. A dangerous mutant, with unparalleled healing skills. A little unhinged.

So when Shield asks him to investigate a lead, he is expecting… something. Not exactly the amount of blood and gore spread through the room, not exactly the figure clad in red spandex, twin swords strapped to his back, face hid by an immediately recognizable mask. Not the man kneeling in front of him with his hands behind his head, sweating profusely as Deadpool himself holds a knife to his throat.

“If I didn’t know any better,” Andrew finds himself saying, perched on the window he just entered through. “I’d think you were trying to copy me with all this red.”

The man on his knees looks at Andrew with the corner of his eyes, breathing heavily and silently pleading. Andrew lets himself catalogue the best positions in the room — it takes barely a second — then gets inside completely, using his web shooter to pull himself towards a desk at the other side. He lands silently on top of the papers, and they barely even move.

“Easier to clean all the blood,” Deadpool answers, gesturing at himself with the hand holding the knife and taking his eyes off of his victim. Now that he’s inside, Andrew can see that Deadpool’s other hand is missing, blood pouring out profusely, skin already starting to grow.

Andrew takes advantage of Deadpool’s distraction to try and shoot the knife out of his hand, but Deadpool is quicker and easily evades — then  _ tsks _ .

There’s a shudder on Andrew’s spine that lets him know he’s about to be in danger, and Andrew throws himself out of the desk — the knife embeds itself on the wall behind him. Had it hit, it would not have killed him, but it would have been very painful and hard to explain. Not that either Nicky or Aaron would actually believe him if he told them the truth.

He had tried, once. They thought he was joking.

“You missed,” Andrew says.

Deadpool doesn’t seem fazed. “You dodged.”

Andrew throws in several webs towards Deadpool, but only one of them hits, and not in the place he wanted it to. Deadpool barely stumbles, and not even a second later throws another knife, which Andrew is forced to dodge — then suddenly there’s a pop, and the room grows dark, heavy. 

Andrew can smell the smoke through the cloth of his mask, and he coughs. The smell sticks to his throat. A smoke bomb, maybe. Regardless, it makes Deadpool impossible to place — and he’s too quiet to hear properly.

Andrew tries to, anyway, and sends webs towards the places where he thinks he hears noises — doesn’t seem to hit anything particular. He expects to have his spider senses warn him of imminent danger, but they never do. The fact that Deadpool isn’t treating him as a real threat bothers Andrew more than he can handle, and he webs himself to the ceiling, hoping that the smoke won’t be too heavy from above.

It’s no use.

“You’re not welcome in this city,” Andrew says. He tries not to let any of his frustration show, but he’s not sure he is entirely successful.

“I’m not welcome anywhere,” is the answer. He shoots towards the voice, but hits the wall instead. “But I’ll be out of your hair as soon as my business here is done.”

“The next time we meet, I’m going to kill you.” It’s not an empty threat. Andrew would rather not have to kill, but he doesn’t like people without allegiances in his city. You can’t trust them to take a side and commit. It makes them hard to predict.

“I’ll look forwards to it,” Deadpool says. His voice is honest, not mocking, and for a whole second Andrew feels frozen. There’s an emptiness to the tone that Andrew recognizes from within himself, from before he had Nicky and Aaron and Kevin, from before he met Bee.

The smoke starts to clear, and Andrew can barely make out Deadpool’s shape perched on the window, the same one Andrew used to get inside. “Tell Lola I’m going to see her next,” he says. His voice is cold, now, none of the amusement he had shown Andrew.

Somehow, he knows Deadpool isn’t talking to him.

The smoke clears a bit more. Deadpool sends Andrew a lazy salute, and with his other hand — hadn’t it been gone a few seconds ago? — he takes out some strange goggles from out of his face. He then throws himself out of the window, with his arms open, as if he was diving into water, as if there wasn’t only concrete below.

Andrew considers going after him — his curiosity  _ burns  _ and his hands  _ itch _ and there are questions he’d like an answer to — but he hears Kevin’s annoying voice inside his head telling him to check on the victim, and that’s what he does.

When he walks past the desk, he notices there’s something different: Deadpool messed with the order of the papers, the ones on top are no longer the same as before. Andrew wets his lips, wondering why Deadpool felt the need to mess with them. Before he can change his mind, he takes them.

They won’t answer the questions he has, but they’ll have to do.

  
  


After that night, several things happen in quick succession. They figure out that Shield has been overrun by the Ravens, a terrorist group with ties to Kevin’s past, and that the organization isn’t trustworthy anymore — if it ever was. Director Wymack creates a secret super-hero group he calls The Foxes, outside of Shield’s purview and backed up by Allison’s billions. Andrew finds himself drafted onto a stupid conflict between Iron Woman and Captain America, because Allison doesn’t trust Kevin anymore after she finds out about his past. The Foxes are forced to go public.

It’s some time before he gets to read the papers he stole that day he met Deadpool.

The information he finds there is… not what he was expecting.

  
  


The next time they meet, Deadpool is hanging from the ceiling of an underground base that belongs to the Ravens, wrists bound and legs dangling, eyes closed and face twisted in pain. He’s not wearing his suit, and Andrew only recognizes him because of the picture on the papers he stole. He looks a little different, now, a little older, with plenty of new scars.

Andrew stops by the door, and looks inside the room. It’s empty, currently, the scientists probably busy with whatever distraction Allison concocted for them. The walls are white, bare, and there’s a little table to the side filled with what are probably torture tools. Despite the fact that no one can see his face, Andrew fights to keep it completely blank.

“Nathaniel Wesninski,” he says, instead of anything else, keeping his voice steady. Deadpool opens his eyes, and they’re bluer than Andrew was expecting. 

He takes a step into the room, and Deadpool’s eyes track his movements in a way that makes Andrew uneasy. He’s a dangerous man, more so when caged. Andrew’s spider senses don’t warn him of anything, but he thinks they don’t need to. He isn’t dumb.

“I don’t like that name,” Deadpool says. Andrew thinks of  _ AJ _ , he thinks of  _ please _ , he thinks of the many, countless words he would rather no longer exist in the English language. He feels himself freeze, for a second, and has to force his head to move so he can nod.

“You don’t look like a Nathaniel, anyway,” he says, to distract himself from the ugly memories.

Deadpool laughs.

Andrew suddenly understands why people call him unhinged. Still, he can’t help but notice that Deadpool’s whole face gets transformed, can’t help but think he looks almost like he isn’t human. The mercenary has its own kind of beauty, in a lethal way, but that’s something he won’t admit even to Bee. She’ll think him unhinged too.

There’s a loud snap, and then Deadpool is falling to the ground. Andrew takes a step forward to hold his weight, and it’s only due to his metahuman strength that they both don’t topple to the floor. The closeness to another body is uncomfortable, but he forces himself to bear it for a moment.

“Ouch,” Deadpool says, wrists limp. Andrew lets go of him, when he seems firm enough. In turn, Deadpool wobbles towards the table. As he moves, Andrew can see that his bones are slowly setting themselves straight.

“Deadpool,” Andrew starts, unsure of how he’s planning to finish the sentence, trying not to let worry bleed into his tone. He gets the impression he isn’t entirely successful, by the half-smile he is offered when the mercenary looks back at him.

“I’m fine,” he shrugs. “They’re already setting.”

“Let’s get out of this place.”

“Not before I blow it up.”

Andrew raises an eyebrow. Deadpool can’t see it, so he forces himself to say: “The Foxes aren’t going to like that.”

Deadpool taps his fingers against the table. “They won’t be able to stop me.”

Andrew thinks that they could. Deadpool is weak, and hurting, and has been locked up here for a very long time. But they won’t realize what Deadpool is doing until it is too late, and Andrew… isn’t going to inform them.

“I’ll tell Kevin to leave the premises.”

Deadpool  _ hmms _ . He turns towards the door, to leave, and then pauses, turns back. “I go by Neil, by the way. Neil Josten.”

  
  


It’s not the last he sees of Deadpool — of  _ Neil _ . It turns out that Kevin knows him from their equally shady and tragic past, so Neil ends up working with the Foxes more often than not. Shield doesn’t like it, but Shield doesn’t have any bearing on the Foxes, and with the public opinion on their side — Allison is very good at making people think what she wants them to think, after all — Deadpool is now a superhero extraordinaire.

All in all, his relationship with the Foxes is disgusting. The way he manipulates the Foxes into becoming a fully-functioning superhero group is disgusting. The way he keeps looking at Andrew as if  _ Andrew _ was somehow something  _ good _ and  _ nice _ and  _ worth it _ is disgusting.

Andrew was never a real part of the Foxes, despite working with Shield and working with them. He was Spider-Man, friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, small time superhero. He never wanted to be a part of their super special boyband, he never liked their overbearing presence and their cheerful righteousness. And still he finds himself spending more and more time on their base, because Neil asks him with those eyes that are too blue to be real, that look at him with more softness than he deserves, that shine with something akin to happiness whenever he is around.

Andrew was always very good at denying himself what he wants, but he finds that he is very bad at denying anything to Neil.

  
  


Deadpool finds him on a rooftop. Not  _ a  _ rooftop,  _ the _ rooftop. The one he likes to go to when the world becomes too much, because it is silent and he can see the city lights. The one he goes to when he feels all empty and void of feeling, because it is high enough that he might die if he drops down. He doesn’t go to the rooftop as often, these days. He takes it as a sign of… something. 

Bee would call it “ _ having less destructive coping methods _ ” and “ _ getting better _ ”.

Andrew would like to disagree with her, but he can’t.

Still, he invariably finds himself sitting at the edge of the building, legs dangling, fear making his hands sweat and his stomach queasy, his heart beat fast. One moment, he’s all alone. The next, Deadpool is sitting beside him, a respectful distance away. 

Andrew can feel the warmth coming from his body, anyway.

“Kevin said you might be here,” he comments after Andrew doesn’t acknowledge him. Andrew considers ignoring him further, but he doesn’t. He likes Neil’s voice. He thinks hearing Neil speak might make him feel better. It’s not a thought that sits comfortably inside his mind, but it is a thought that exists.

“Kevin should learn to keep his mouth shut.”

“Spider-Man,” Neil starts, but Andrew shakes his head, not wanting to be called that. Sometimes, Spider-Man is a symbol of everything Andrew feels like he isn’t. “Andrew,” Neil corrects himself. 

Andrew expects a question to come next, but there’s only silence — only the sound of their collective breathing. Andrew suddenly remembers that time they met in an underground Raven laboratory, when he said  _ Deadpool _ and nothing else and Neil understood that he was worried anyway.

Andrew isn’t one for platitudes, so he doesn’t say he’s fine. He  _ isn’t _ . Recognizing that is also part of getting better.

Andrew closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and then he lets it out slowly. Deadpool makes him feel better just by existing. Just by respecting his space. Just by not asking him if he is fine when he clearly isn’t. “Sometimes I fear that I will open my eyes and you will disappear.”

“I’m right here.” Neil’s voice is soft. Quiet.

“Why did you befriend me?” He wants to know, a desire at the pit of his stomach. If he were a part of the Foxes, Andrew would understand — he would know the answer. But Spider-Man was never essential to the workings of their group, and despite the fact that he works with them almost as often as Deadpool, he is not one of the official members. Neil doesn’t need to manipulate him into behaving.

There’s nothing he could offer Deadpool that would justify their… something. Nothing he adds to the group. No blood ties between them, no promises, no deals.

“Why were you nice to me?” Neil asks in return. 

Andrew opens his eyes, and turns his head towards him. He’s not wearing his mask, scars in full display. He’s looking up, at the sky, hands resting at both sides of his body. Andrew can see the marks coming down from his fingers, on the back of his hands, around his wrists. There are a hundred, a thousand, a million questions at the tip of his tongue that he has to swallow back.

He almost forgets to answer the question.

“I wasn’t  _ nice _ . I’m  _ never _ nice.” Neil looks down from the sky, towards his face. There’s something soft in his eyes that makes Andrew’s fingers twitch. He wants to extend his hand and turn Neil’s face away. He wants to leave. He wants him to never stop looking at him like that. “Stop looking at me like that.”

“You told me I didn’t look like Nathaniel,” Neil smiles. “You let me blow their base up. You let me whip the Foxes into shape. Even now, you’re sharing your rooftop with me. You’re nice, when no one is looking. You’re  _ kind _ , if one knows what to look for.”

_ Shut up _ , Andrew thinks. Doesn’t say it. His fingers twitch again, and Andrew wants to push him away, wants to pull him closer. Wants to push him out of the roof, hold him in his arms. He does none of those things. He closes his eyes, breathes deeply again. When he opens them, Neil is still looking at him as if he is some kind of miracle. 

_ You’re allowed to want things _ , the voice inside his head that sounds a lot like Bee tells him.  _ You’re allowed to have them _ .

“Neil,” Andrew starts. Pauses. Continues: “I want to kiss you. Yes or No?”

  
  
_ I hate him _ , he wants to tell Bee. Hate is a word that rolls easily out of his tongue. It’s an easy feeling, a safe one. But it sounds wrong. Hate is not the feeling he feels towards Deadpool. “I  _ like  _ him,” he says instead.

**Author's Note:**

> EXTRA SCENE
> 
> “Andrew! You didn’t tell me you had a boyfriend!” Nicky claps his hands, and there’s a self-satisfied smile on his face. He looks proud. It’s strange to be responsible for that look on his face. “Where did you meet?!”
> 
> Neil sends Andrew a panicked look. Neil knows that Nicky and Aaron don’t know about Spider-Man, he knows that Andrew keeps his identity a secret because he is afraid that people might use it against his family. He probably thinks that Andrew works very hard to keep Aaron and Nicky from figuring it out, but the truth is that he… doesn’t.
> 
> “I’m Spider-Man and he’s Deadpool,” Andrew answers, deadpan.
> 
> Nicky rolls his eyes. “If you didn’t want to tell me, all you had to do was say it. I’m not going to pry. I know you’re a private person.”
> 
> Neil sends Andrew a confused look. Andrew shrugs. Nicky offers them some hot chocolate. All is well.


End file.
